Well, I used the dodgy cash machine outside Tesco's Ingleby Barwick. And didn't notice a thing. Did you?

But like plenty of others, I'll be checking my bank statement to see if the hole-in-the-wall gang caught me out.

Why? Well, they've been fiddling with the money machine and heaven only knows whose pin number they have.

The tricksters may well have tapped into my millions (Oh yeah, some chance!) as I innocently tapped in 'the code that must be remembered.'

And until I read about it in the Gazette, I didn't have a clue that the machine could be zipping my secret numbers to someone else.

The quick diversion to Tesco on the way to work could have cost me a pretty penny and a whole heap of bother.

And it's all the more annoying because I'm usually careful enough to use machines inside the bank, working on the assumption that even the most idiotic of villains won't risk being caught on CCTV.

But how the heck do I know if it's a real machine or a fake? If it's fitted with false covers scanning vital details from my card or not?

One clever Teesside customer did, though. Give 'em a medal and a job with the hole-in-the-wall police!

With thieves netting more than £100 million a year, their superhuman powers of observation are an amazing talent in big demand in rip-off Britain.

One bank has even been driven to ask customers to use money machines as little as possible. Desperate measures in a mad world where genius high-tech meets toe-rag criminal - and falls pathetically at the first fence.

Even the biggest money heist the country's ever seen - was it £50 million? - had a lot to do with cash machines.

Ever wondered why so much money was kept in that Kent piggy bank?

Because every day right under our noses, millions of pounds are being moved around Britain in security vans.

The reason why is simple. We all want cash quick as a flash - and the machines need to be filled with loadsanotes.

So money is being scurried here, there and everywhere - and at risk of being grabbed one way or another by thieves and fraudsters.

Perhaps even today, there's a lot to be said for the good old-fashioned pennies in the purses and cash under the bed.

MEANWHILE, back in the past, the country's 400-year-old barometer-making industry is under threat.

Barometers? Yes, you know, the instruments which measure how foul Teesside's weather is going to be - and lately they must have been going bananas.

It's Brussels to blame. The EC wants to outlaw the use of mercury in temperature and weather gauges because it's toxic.

And because we have the handful of experts left who can make the clever things, we are going to be worst hit.

Of course - like cash machines - they can use tricky-dicky electronic and digital technology, but that spoils the whole image.

Let's hope the idea is kicked out - or we might end up with tricksters stealing our weather forecasts.